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Will Google Keep Motorola?

By Christine Hall on September 7, 2011 |

Business, Distros, Hardware, Mobile and News

There’s been very little in the way of real news about Google’s purchase of Motorola Mobility since the deal was announced on August 15th. We know this acquisition was made mainly because Google desperately needs to beef up its mobile patent portfolio, and that Motorola has several boatloads of such patents. This means if this sale can pass antitrust muster with the DOJ, Google will be in a much better position to wheel and deal with the likes of Apple, maybe even Oracle, when it comes to Android and alleged patent infringements.

Everybody gets that – no argument. However, many tech writers have been wondering out loud how Android vendors like HTC and Samsung feel about Google competing with them in the consumer marketplace. Aren’t they worried that Google will give preference to Motorola at the expense of the other handset makers?

Continue readingWill Google Keep Motorola?

The VAR Guy: Does Sold Mean Sold Out?

By Christine Hall on September 5, 2011 |

Business, Internet, Media and News

Several times a month while looking for updates for our Facebook and Twitter feeds, I run across articles by an unknown writer who pens a blog called The VAR Guy. He’s usually Linux and FOSS friendly, but not always. If you don’t know, VAR stands for “value-added reseller,” so sometimes he can understandably turn downright proprietary – right when you least expect it. Mostly, however, he’s pretty fair, or as fair as you can expect someone to be who would profit by getting you to sign up for long term vendor lock-in.

Now The VAR Guy has been sold. More specifically, The VAR Guy’s publisher, Nine Lives Media, which also publishes the web sites MSPmentor and Talkin’ Cloud, has been sold to Penton Media, a huge business-to-business media company. At last count, according to Wikipedia, Penton “publishes and produces 113 magazines, 96 trade shows, 145 websites and has over six million subscribers across 17 different market segments.” Their target markets run the alphabetic gamut from Agriculture to Wealth Management. Nine Lives will become part of Penton’s “Technology Group.”

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingThe VAR Guy: Does Sold Mean Sold Out?

Kernel Archives Hacked, SCO Dies Again, More HP Changes & More

By Christine Hall on September 2, 2011 |

Business, News and Security

Friday FOSS Week in Review

It’s been a busy week in the FOSS world. Evidently everyone’s been in a hurry to make some news happen before leaving town for the Labor Day weekend. Well, lots of FOSS news is good for me, makes my job easy, so here goes…

HP Makes PR Changes After WebOS/PC Fiasco

I’ve been working on a story all week on the mess at HP caused by the all-at-once and probably premature announcement they’re dropping WebOS, smartphones and consumer PCs. One trouble, I keep having to go back and rewrite stuff, because the story is still very, very fluid and new aspects keep popping up almost daily.

On Monday, Bloomberg Businessweek announced that HP’s chief communications officer, Bill Wohl, will be moving to a “special assignment.” Chief Marketing Officer Marty Homlish will be picking up the slack with the corporate communications team and Lynn Anderson will take care of PR’s day-to-day operations, at least for the time being. According to the Bloomberg, both Wohl and Homlish have a history with CEO Leo Apotheker that predates his tenure at HP:

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingKernel Archives Hacked, SCO Dies Again, More HP Changes & More

Top 10 Reasons Why Red Hat is Moving to Downtown Raleigh

By FOSS Force on September 1, 2011 |

Business, Distros, Humor and News

It’s Thursday, and you know what that means? Even if we can’t get Christine to wake-up long enough to write one of her articles, you can always depend on us to be here like clockwork for the Top 10 List.

A while back, Red Hat announced they might be leaving the big city of Raleigh to find a new location to continue tweaking their code. A little later, they announced they’d decided to remain in the North Carolina capital city after all – but they’d be looking for new digs since they were getting somewhat crowded at their old location. This week they announced they’d found their new home, a big ol’ office tower in Raleigh’s downtown.

Obviously, much thought went into the decisions to stay in Raleigh and in deciding where in the city to relocate. Since we’re located just up the road from them, in Winston-Salem, we were able to infiltrate their organization with one of our agents, code name Ms. Dos, who was able to discover the Top 10 reasons why Red Hat is moving to downtown Raleigh…

  1. “Fedoras and panama suits are always in style!”
  2. “Moonshine – America’s open source likker.”
  3. “That wacky way the city ignores all rules of spelling.”
  4. “How ’bout them Canes, eh?”
  5. North Carolina – if it’s good enough for FOSS Force, it’s good enough for us!”
Continue readingTop 10 Reasons Why Red Hat is Moving to Downtown Raleigh

Content Thieves Are on the Prowl

By Christine Hall on August 27, 2011 |

Internet, Media, News and Site News

This morning I found a rather weird pingback on this site. Weird because although the pingback appeared in the comments to the article I’d written about Steve Jobs resignation from Apple, it was a pingback to yesterday’s Friday FOSS Week in Review article. Being the curious sort, I clicked on the link and was taken to a site called TheoryReport, where I indeed found my Friday FOSS Week in Review article.

The article was posted in it’s entirety, but with two small differences. First, Joe Lovrek is listed as the author of the post, with no mention anywhere that the post was copied from FOSS Force or that it was written by me. Also, seemingly random words are inserted into the post, in an obvious attempt at keyword spamming for the “benefit” of search engines. The page contains Google Adwords, so the idea is evidently to garner some free clicks without having to work at actually creating content.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingContent Thieves Are on the Prowl

Happy Birthday Tux, Android Number One in Malware & Kubrick to the Rescue

By Christine Hall on August 26, 2011 |

Business, Mobile, News, Patents and Security

Friday FOSS Week in Review

I’m back from vacation and raring to go. Of course, when I decided to take time off, all heck broke out in the tech world – isn’t that the way it always goes. Now that I’m back, things will probably slow down and I’ll find myself begging for things to write about. Of course, the biggest story this week has little direct connection with FOSS, but has to do with Apple…

Steve Jobs Resigns as Apple’s CEO

By now, I assume everyone’s heard the news about Steve Jobs’ resignation as CEO of Apple, presumably due to health reasons. For the time being he’ll be staying on as board chairman and will continue in some undefined role as an “employee.” He’ll be replaced as CEO by chief operating officer Tim Cook, who’s worked closely with Jobs for thirteen years. By all accounts Cook is capable and is credited with solving the company’s supply problems early in his tenure at Apple. To my thinking, it’s much too soon to tell how Jobs departure will affect Apple, though it’s certain his absence will be felt.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingHappy Birthday Tux, Android Number One in Malware & Kubrick to the Rescue

Apple’s Jobsless Future

By Christine Hall on August 24, 2011 |

Business, Mobile and News

As a FOSS supporter, I’ve often found myself POd by actions taken by Steve Jobs, especially in recent months as he’s pulled out his patent portfolio and declared war on Android. However, I’ve never viewed his actions through the same lens I’ve used to see the anti-FOSS moves made by the likes of Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer or Larry Ellison. Indeed, I’ve always viewed Jobs as something of a kindred spirit and have understood that his commitment to protecting Apple has been brought about because he knows what it’s like to be ripped off by the likes of Microsoft. It’s happened to him in the past and he’ll be damned if he’s going to let it happen to him again. I like Jobs. I admire him. But he still pisses me off sometimes.

I also have a love/hate relationship with Apple, the company he founded and the company he rescued from oblivion with his return to the helm in 1996. Under Jobs guidance, the company has risen to the top of U.S. corporate culture not by bullying but by honest and shrewd marketing and by offering products that represent quality and value. But now Jobs is gone as CEO, and the world wonders if Apple can continue to innovate and grow without his vision.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingApple’s Jobsless Future

HP Says Farewell to WebOS, Tablets & PCs

By Christine Hall on August 18, 2011 |

Business, Distros, Mobile and News

In a somewhat surprising move, HP has announced they are dropping all devices running WebOS. The announcement came in a terse two sentences included in a press release issued today on Business Wire:

“In addition, HP reported that it plans to announce that it will discontinue operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and webOS phones. HP will continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward.”

This announcement caught many off guard. The PR folks at HP have been busy extolling the virtues of the mobile operating system, which became their property when they acquired Palm last year for about $1.2 billion. In the April, 2010 press release that announced the Palm acquisition, a HP executive vice president saw a great future for HP and WebOS:

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingHP Says Farewell to WebOS, Tablets & PCs

Congress Considers Stepping on Rights, Windows Mobile Share Nil & Whose DNA Is It Anyway?

By Christine Hall on August 5, 2011 |

Browsers, Business, Distros, Internet, Mobile, News, Patents, Politics, Security and Software

Friday FOSS Week in Review

With the Black Hat Conference going on in Las Vegas, and with Congress messing around where they shouldn’t, this has been a busy week in the FOSS world. Some of the news is good; some of the news is not so good. I’ll start with a rant…

Proposed Data Retention Bill Would Chill Free Speech

The House will soon be considering a bill that will require ISP’s to maintain logs of their customers Internet use for a 12 month period. As I understand it, the law would include a customer’s browsing history, credit card numbers, etc. The stated purpose of the proposed law is to catch pedophiles visiting child porn sites, but everybody who knows anything about the Internet agrees it won’t be very effective at doing that. What it will do, if enacted, is bring Orwell’s “Big Brother” vision a little closer to home and make your network connected devices look even more like telescreens than they do now.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingCongress Considers Stepping on Rights, Windows Mobile Share Nil & Whose DNA Is It Anyway?

osCommerce Under Attack – So Far 3.79 Million Pages Affected

By Christine Hall on August 1, 2011 |

Internet, News, Security and Web Apps

The popular osCommerce ecommerce application has been under attack at least since last week, according to web application security firm Amorize. At last count the attack has affected more than three million pages. The attack, in the form of an iFrame injection, utilizes several vulnerabilities in older versions of osCommerce. The latest version doesn’t seem to be affected. Any business using an older version of osCommerce is advised to upgrade immediately.

The Zen Cart ecommerce application, which was initially a value added fork of osCommerce, doesn’t seem to be affected. Kim Elliott, one of the founding members of Zen Cart, told me, “As far as I know there hasn’t been a problem. As long as you have our latest version and file permissions set correctly you shouldn’t have any issues.”

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingosCommerce Under Attack – So Far 3.79 Million Pages Affected

Finnix Finishes First, MS Wants to Own Cloud, Google Beefs Portfolio & More…

By Christine Hall on July 29, 2011 |

Business, Distros, Hardware, Mobile, News and Patents

Friday FOSS Week in Review

Cool beans, it’s Friday! Time to get out of the office and enjoy! Trouble is, here at FOSS Force the temps and humidity are so high there won’t be anything to do but stay inside and hug the air conditioning. Anyway, this week’s Friday review is mostly good news for a change, and that’s good news, no?

And the Winner Is …Finnix!

On Monday, Linus Torvalds announced the official release of the new 3.0 Linux kernel and on Tuesday Softpedia announced the first distro to use the new kernel as the default install:

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingFinnix Finishes First, MS Wants to Own Cloud, Google Beefs Portfolio & More…
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